This face-to-face visit was nothing like my other two encounters with Trungpa. I wasn’t nervous at all, and Trungpa was wonderfully hospitable, offering me sake and a hearty thanks for coming to this experimental program. Yet, less than sixty seconds later, Trungpa leaned across his desk and said, “I have something I need to tell you.”

For the next couple of hours, Trungpa engaged me in a rambling discussion about my “practice” that was nothing short of the most astounding spiritual diagnosis, and then prognosis, I could have imagined. Somehow—inexplicably—Trungpa knew everything about my spiritual history. This was not the sort of stuff one might read off someone’s résumé, and that was about all Trungpa knew about me. But the most startling part of the discussion emerged when Trungpa said, “Charles, I think you should stop sitting in meditation.” For someone who prescribed the basic Buddhist calming meditation practice known as shamatha for virtually everyone in his community, this was shocking, even heretical advice. But he went on to explain, “You’ve been sitting for almost ten years, and many hours each day as well. You’ve simply fallen into using sitting practice as an excuse to withdraw from the world rather than encountering it and experiencing it through the Buddhist principles you’ve learned. Get off your cushion and let the experiences of your everyday life be your guru. Only return to your cushion when you lose faith . . . and you will occasionally.” He then went on to talk briefly about the efficacy of the wisdom inherent in the four noble truths. It was astounding advice, and accurate. Yet, during all of this miraculous encounter, he never suggested that he should become my teacher or that I should join his community. And there again were those persistent and seemingly inescapable four noble truths.

For the rest of our time together, we talked about everything from his community, and plans for the dharma in America, to his fabled drinking and sexual experiences. He held nothing back and made no apologies. When I left his office, nobody could figure out why Trungpa spent so much time talking to this guy who was merely a scholar. Just prior to my midsummer departure from the institute, I met with Trungpa one last time, and as I got up to leave, he pulled me into an incredibly warm, intimate hug and said, “Thank you so very much for coming; I do hope you’ll come back again next year.”

Through Dzogchen we can really understand what God is and we don’t have to worry if there is a God or not. God always exists as our real nature, the base, for everybody. - Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

Many of the spiritual entrepreneurs of the day appear to seek the adoration and veneration from their followers without much inclination towards demonstrating behavior or conduct befitting a monk or sage. Although it seems self-evident to most objective observers, it is not always obvious to many disciples and students of yogis, spiritual teachers, and cult leaders that their gurus are simply human beings and therefore limited and sometimes deeply flawed.

greentara wrote:Many of the spiritual entrepreneurs of the day appear to seek the adoration and veneration from their followers without much inclination towards demonstrating behavior or conduct befitting a monk or sage. Although it seems self-evident to most objective observers, it is not always obvious to many disciples and students of yogis, spiritual teachers, and cult leaders that their gurus are simply human beings and therefore limited and sometimes deeply flawed.

greentara wrote:Many of the spiritual entrepreneurs of the day appear to seek the adoration and veneration from their followers without much inclination towards demonstrating behavior or conduct befitting a monk or sage. Although it seems self-evident to most objective observers, it is not always obvious to many disciples and students of yogis, spiritual teachers, and cult leaders that their gurus are simply human beings and therefore limited and sometimes deeply flawed.

'Many people continue to view their guru or their spiritual leader as being infallible even when overwhelming evidence points in the exact opposite direction. To avoid facing the painful reality, some followers interpret the facts of their leaders conduct in creative ways to explain them away somehow. It happens. One has to only read the newspapers and the Internet sites to discover all the information there. Spirituality and selling of wisdom is a huge business.

. Don’t like to be overly critical of spiritual teachers in any religion or spiritual tradition. Certainly, they bring many benefits to people and parts of humanity. But it seems to me that that many of the so called “gurus” and “spiritual masters” are plainly lacking in anything but the most superficial insight and knowledge.Many of these self-help and self-proclaimed gurus struggle with serious emotional and psychological issues and need to be constantly on a power trip and thrive only when dominating their students and disciples.

It is no wonder that traditional religious and yogic orthodoxy in India responded so negatively to the attacks of Jiddu Krishnamurti and later Rajneesh (Osho). Despite the serious personal limitations and weaknesses of these two critics of the existing orthodoxy, they were powerful voices in pointing out the hypocrisy of gurus and masters in spiritual traditions who “sell” Universal Truths, and make disciples dependent upon them.

Ironically, both J. Krishnamurthy and Rajneesh (Osho) fell into the same mental and spiritual traps that they accused other teachers of being in. It happens. This is all part of the human condition. Many of so called gurus and teachers and the enlightened ones are struggling to find their place and path in this world. As long as “Enlightenment” is viewed as a commodity that can be sold and bought, there will be sellers and buyers. This is simply how the free market works'

And the connection is.....Many people continue to view their guru or their spiritual leader as being infallible even when overwhelming evidence points in the exact opposite direction. To avoid facing the painful reality, some followers interpret the facts of their leaders conduct in creative ways to explain them away somehow.

greentara wrote:And the connection is.....Many people continue to view their guru or their spiritual leader as being infallible even when overwhelming evidence points in the exact opposite direction. To avoid facing the painful reality, some followers interpret the facts of their leaders conduct in creative ways to explain them away somehow.

Yeah, but, you just interjected your whole comment in the middle of...nowhere. Did you mean to say that this applies to Trungpa Rinpoche? Or not? It just seemed out of context, random, and unrelated to everything in recent posts. Hence our confusion.

'At the end Trungpa Rinpoche passed away when he was quite young. . Few could bear to acknowledge that their beloved and brilliant teacher was dying of terminal alcoholism, caused almost exclusively by cirrhosis of the liver.” In addition to being an alcoholic, ChogyamTrungpa had sexual relationships with his followers, encouraged the use of mind-altering drugs, and was rather abusive.

His successor, Osel Tendzin, was even less savoury. Before he died in 1990, this saint admitted to having sex with over a hundred men and women even though he knew that he had AIDs. A number of these partners contracted the disease themselves.

Many still believe that Chogyam Trungpa and Osel Tendzin were spiritual masters, and use all sorts of mystical rationalizations to defend their adoration. Their blind faith demonstrates one of the dangers of religion: the dissolution of the ego can, if accompanied by the dissolution of the critical intellect, result in abject subjugation to another person’s ego, an ego that may have a hidden and unpalatable agenda.'

AhHhhh okay, you did mean it in reference to Trungpa Rinpoche. So simple! Why didn't you just say so from the start? Here I thought you were trying to be sneaky, then you commented all about Krishnamurti and Osho, and finally you admit, you disapprove.

heart, I do understand as I thought 'Cutting through spiritual materialism' was a wonderful book. There are some who are very articulate, charismatic and can talk the talk. If the cravings and desires are too strong you cannot live the teaching....so how can you guide others?

greentara wrote:heart, I do understand as I thought 'Cutting through spiritual materialism' was a wonderful book. There are some who are very articulate, charismatic and can talk the talk. If the cravings and desires are too strong you cannot live the teaching....so how can you guide others?

There is no 'how ? '....he did. In their thousands. Including some of todays best known Dharma teachers. Its easy to resolve a paradox by ignoring a major salient point.

greentara wrote:heart, I do understand as I thought 'Cutting through spiritual materialism' was a wonderful book. There are some who are very articulate, charismatic and can talk the talk. If the cravings and desires are too strong you cannot live the teaching....so how can you guide others?

His capacity to guide is proved by those he guided, like Pema Chodron for example, don't you agree?

/magnus

"To reject practice by saying, 'it is conceptual!' is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided."- Longchenpa

'Many still believe that Chogyam Trungpa and Osel Tendzin were spiritual masters, and use all sorts of mystical rationalizations to defend their adoration. Their blind faith demonstrates one of the dangers of religion: the dissolution of the ego can, if accompanied by the dissolution of the critical intellect, can result in abject subjugation to another person’s ego, an ego that may have a hidden and unpalatable agenda'Simon E and others if you adore and believe in Trungpa well and good, if you feel you benefit ok... but don't trot out all this passive/aggressive stuff and spare me the clinician speak!nuff said!

greentara wrote:'Many still believe that Chogyam Trungpa and Osel Tendzin were spiritual masters, and use all sorts of mystical rationalizations to defend their adoration. Their blind faith demonstrates one of the dangers of religion: the dissolution of the ego can, if accompanied by the dissolution of the critical intellect, can result in abject subjugation to another person’s ego, an ego that may have a hidden and unpalatable agenda'Simon E and others if you adore and believe in Trungpa well and good, if you feel you benefit ok... but don't trot out all this passive/aggressive stuff and spare me the clinician speak!nuff said!

I certainly agree about blind faith being a danger, but not only in religion. A lot of things in our society is based on blind faith. For example thinking you benefit others by blindly repeating what others have told you. So in the name of critical thinking I must ask you from where you get the faith that Trungpa Rinpoche was a fake teacher from? Where you his student? Do you think all Tibetan Lamas are fakes? Are you a practitioner and in that case who is your teacher?

I am not trying to be clever, I just want to understand your point of view in order to understand if it is blind faith or not.

/magnus

"To reject practice by saying, 'it is conceptual!' is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided."- Longchenpa

Their blind faith demonstrates one of the dangers of religion: the dissolution of the ego can, if accompanied by the dissolution of the critical intellect, can result in abject subjugation to another person’s ego, an ego that may have a hidden and unpalatable agenda'.

True. The potential for the traditional and legitimate teachings on guru-yoga to be abused and become cultish is great. Caveat emptor--in spades!

The guru-yoga teachings are designed for the ideal scenario where the teacher is fully enlightened. The fact that there can be ANY expectation of such a scenario is absolutely astounding to me. Evidently it is EXPECTED to happen on some sort of regular basis. But as we all know, in practice that scenario is actually very rare. So for most of us we must engage in a type of double-think. 99.99% of our teachers will NOT be fully enlightened, so how to see them as such?

My suggestion, and I support this with zero authoritative reference, is to see the teacher as a mixture of enlightened and unenlightened. So far so good. As long as they have lineage and the authority to teach, that's a reasonably safe bet. But enlightenment has an absolute quality to it, kinda like being "a little bit pregnant". So if we have a teacher with meager realization, that's still the realization of a Buddha, only it is covered in dross. So in the guru-yoga of seeing everything the teacher does as pure, we might choose to mentally distill out the dross and affirm the essential. It helps a lot to do this if you have confidence in the lineage. You can see see the person as being flawed, but the teachings as being perfect, thus overcoming your own samsaric mind's limitation of finding fault in everything--which is the point. And of course it is excellent training for when you do finally find a teacher that is fully enlightened. That makes thugs a lot easier.

I say all this with great hesitation. I'm not a Dharma teacher. What I've said is based on my own ignorance, and therefore a corruption of Dharma. Anybody that sees value in it should run it by their own lama for verification.

A human being has his limits. And thus, in every conceivable way, with every possible means, he tries to make the teaching enter into his own limits. ChNN